SAO PAULO: Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for “peace and unity” after narrowly winning a divisive runoff election, capping a remarkable political comeback by defeating far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro who has yet to accept defeat.

“This country needs peace and unity,” Lula said to loud cheers in a victory speech in Sao Paulo. “The challenge is immense,” he said of the job ahead, citing a hunger crisis, the economy, bitter political division and deforestation in the Amazon.

He later addressed a tightly packed crowd of hundreds of thousands of supporters clad in Workers’ Party red, vowing: “Democracy is back.”

Lula in his speech touched on gender and racial equality and the urgent need to deal with a hunger crisis affecting 33.1 million Brazilians. “Today we tell the world that Brazil is back,” he said, adding that the country is “ready to reclaim its place in the fight against the climate crisis, especially the Amazon.” He vowed to “fight for zero deforestation.”

Bolsonaro silent after bitter vote; world leaders congratulate president-elect

His victory marks a stunning turnaround for the charismatic, but tarnished leftist heavyweight, who left office in 2010 as the most popular president in Brazilian history, fell into disgrace when he was imprisoned for 18 months on since-quashed corruption charges, and now returns for an unprecedented third term at age 77.

All eyes will now be on how Bolsonaro and his supporters react to the result after months of alleging without evidence that Brazil’s electronic voting system is plagued by fraud and that the courts, media and other institutions had conspired against his far-right movement.

No word from Bolsonaro

Bolsonaro, 67, was silent in the hours after the result was declared. “Anywhere in the world, the losing president would already have called to admit defeat. He hasn’t called yet, I don’t know if he will call and concede,” Lula told the massive crowd.

Some Bolsonaro supporters, gathered in the capital Brasilia, refused to accept the results.

Electoral officials declared the election for Lula, who had 50.9pc of the vote to 49.1 percent for Bolsonaro with over 99.9pc of polling stations reporting, in the closest race since Brazil returned to democracy after its 1964-1985 dictatorship.

Bolsonaro, the vitriolic hardline conservative, dubbed the “Tropical Trump”, becomes the first incumbent president not to win re-election in the post-dictatorship era. With no word from Bolsonaro, some of his key allies including speaker of the lower house of Congress, Arthur Lira, appeared in public to accept the results.

World leaders

Congratulations for Lula poured in from China’s Xi Jinping, US President Joe Biden, Russian President Vladimir Putin, France’s Emmanuel Macron, India’s Narendra Modi, Britain’s Rishi Sunak and Spain’s Pedro Sanchez, as well as leaders from across Latin America.

Leftist Lula, previously a two-term president, led Brazil into the first BRICS grouping in 2009, initially made up of Brazil, Russia, India, and China, before South Africa joined in 2010. The European Union’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, joined the international well-wishers, as did German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

Lula supporters around the country erupted into celebration Sunday evening.

“We’ve had four years of a genocidal, hateful government,” said Maria Clara, a 26-year-old student, at a victory party in downtown Rio. “Today democracy won, and the possibility of dreaming of a better country again.”

Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2022